Monday, 21 January 2013

Two Smokers on a Sunny Morning

Mick and Tim lean on their shovels under the row of elms
which mark the point where the cemetery joins Roy Canning’s cabbage field. Roy
liked to joke that all the human meal in the soil was doing wonders for his crop,
and that the people of Inverell would be less likely to buy his cabbages if
they realised it was their dead friends and relatives which were giving them
the flavour. But that is the magic of death, the men would say: nobody is
supposed to think about it too much.

The two men smoke and watch the
magpies picking worms from the ceremonial lawns. It is late in the shift and
already the first of the day’s funerals are gathering around the newly dug
graves. They shimmer in the mid-morning heat like a poorly tuned television
that at any moment could change stations to something more jovial.

“Funeral clothes aren’t very
suited to summer,” says Mick. He drops his cigarette butt into the buzz-cut
grass and lights another. The lighter is the cheapest Bic he could find at the
IGA and it takes a few pumps to get a flame. Mick knows that with his smoking
habits he will have a blood blister on his thumb in less than a week.

“Then why don’t you market a line
of clothes especially for summer funerals and see how many you sell,” says Tim.

“It was just an observation,”
says Mick. “A joke really.”

“I know,” says Tim. “I’m joking
too.”

Dust blows across the cemetery,
like the bodies of ghosts, to where the pale sky meets the fields. The mourners
hold their jackets up to their faces. Somewhere in the distance a car hushes
past.

“Look at those people,” says
Mick, jabbing the hot end of his cigarette at the neat crowd of mourners. “Do
you think they have any appreciation for what we do?”

“I suppose that depends on how
much they want to see their friend buried.”

“Like, I know we’re just digging
holes. But they’re a very specialised type of hole. If we dig it even a
fraction too small then we can turn the whole grieving process into a farce.
When people talk about grandpa it’ll be the thing that they remember.”

“Oh yeah. And anyone buried five
feet under is gunna look like an idiot for the rest of time.”

“And the walls need to be dead
straight and the bottom dead flat and its all gotta look perfect. It has to be
perfect.” Mick’s voice trails off. He looks across at Tim. He’s got to be about
ten years older than Mick, with a sun-beaten face like cracked clay. He’s not
old enough to be Mick’s father, but he’s not young enough to be Mick’s friend.
So what is he?

Aware that his eyes are lingering
for too long, he loses himself in the thick mess of lawn.

“I don’t want someone like us
digging my grave,” says Tim eventually. “I’m gunna dig it myself. Then when I’m
lying in it, I’m gunna have a little label over my head which points out to
passers by not to dig in this spot.”

Mick cracks a grin and nearly
loses his cigarette. Tim is staring out over the lines of graves. There is a
wry smile in the corner of his lip and his cheek crinkles around it like a
cloud of arrows.

“You’re absolutely right,” says
Mick.

“And I’m not gunna have a
funeral, because who wants to spend a whole morning feeling bad about
themselves. And worse: having the expectation that they should feel bad
about themselves. What sort of friend would want to inflict that kind of pain
onto the people he supposably loves?”

“I’m not even going to let anyone
know that I’m dying,” says Mick. “I’m just going to leave a note at home saying
that I’ve died and am buried in a non-descript place. Somewhere out of the way.
I suppose a cemetery is as out of the way as you can get.”

Tim looks across at Mick and
drops his cigarette butt into the grass. It smoulders briefly in the
nutrient-rich mulch then goes out.

“Let me ask you something,” says
Tim. “Why do you care how you die? Or what happens after? You’ll be dead
anyway.”

The mourners are returning to
their cars across the lawns. They talk in hushed tones and make mournful
sweeping actions with their heads. A few people linger: two girls, two
middle-aged men wearing sunglasses and an old man. Then they turn to leave too.

“I don’t know,” he says finally.

Tim stamps on his cigarette butt.
He wraps his well worn fingers around the handle of his spade and swings the
shaft into his other hand.

“I suppose we better get back to
work,” he says. He begins walking across the lawns, scattering the magpies as
he goes. Mick watches the old man walk away. For a moment he imagines he is on
his way to dig his own grave.